Tag! I’m It!

The rules are simple. Search your work in progress for the first use of “look”. Copy and paste that paragraph and the ones immediately before and after into a blog post. Then tag five other authors.

This is from the second draft (revised) of Those of My Kind, my thesis novel.

Tristan clenched her fists in her lap and sealed her lips together, but tears spilled down her cheeks nevertheless. “Please, Rosa. Don’t make me quit. I won’t tell Momma I’m here. I’ll find a way to pay for it myself. Just please let me stay.”

“Oh, honey.” Rosa knelt beside Tristan’s chair. Tristan, quivering, welcomed her embrace even as she knew it would be the last. “When you are old enough, maybe you can be my assistant. I’ve always needed one—just look at this place.” Rosa offered another smile, but Tristan rejected it by turning away. She couldn’t bear it any longer. “If there is a way they can make you well again, you will always have a place here.” Rosa dabbed Tristan’s eyes with a tissue. Her skin smelled of vanilla, her auburn hair of raspberries. Those two scents, to Tristan, became forever entwined with heartbreak.

That evening, sitting beside the backyard fire pit after Momma had taken Mami Treszka out to see a movie, Tristan watched flames consume the purple dress with its gored and ruffled crepe skirt. Outside of dance, Momma had never been able to get her into a dress. It was the only one Tristan owned.